smooth color transition and cycling for saber blade

Hi All,

First post, please bear with me. I've been reading the Start Here stuff and will continue to read more and more. That said, I do have a question relating to building my own saber.

My concept, as it stands, is for a nagimaki-inspired saber. That is, to have an obscenely long handle (at the moment, around 19", but maybe as high as 24"). I'm tentatively planning to use a CFSC v6.5 + CF v6 Color Xtender to drive a LED Engin LZ4 RGBW.

I'd like to make the blade cycle through all the colors, smoothly transitioning from one to the next, and have this be the "default" mode. (It may come up in red, but it would immediately start the transitions). This is the effect that I'm aiming for: low quality video. (No, that's not me. He has hair.) Does that make sense?

Is this possible? With the CFSC + CX? What other options would I have? Thanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hawkeye88

I'd like to make the blade cycle through all the colors, smoothly transitioning from one to the next, and have this be the "default" mode. (It may come up in red, but it would immediately start the transitions). This is the effect that I'm aiming for: low quality video. (No, that's not me. He has hair.) Does that make sense?

Is this possible? With the CFSC + CX? What other options would I have? Thanks.

---

First, Welcome to the forums.

No, it is not possible to have the colors cycle like a rainbow with a CF6+CEX. You can assign a blade color per sound font bank, and have ONE color for FoC per bank.

Drat. Maybe with an Arduino... Thanks.

It could be done. In a hilt that long you could use a 555 with a series of flip-flops and a D2A converter. Well, one setup for each lead on the RGB. Yeah, easier with an Arduino, I just like discrete part programming myself. Keep us up on your progress. Is there a story behind the chromatic blade, or just something you want to do?

I'll have to read up more on the "555 with a series of flip-flops and a DAC," but that sounds interesting. I'm sure I'll be exploring options for a while.

Story... sort of... It's kind of a Go With the Flow sort of thing, recognizing that change is a constant, that people run the gamut of emotions, etc. It's a visual reminder to not be centered on one's self, but to observe one's surroundings, motivations of others, etc. My character from waaaaaaay back in the WEG days had a chromatic blade (remember kids, always buy pizza for the GM) and I thought it would be "fun" to make one.

It can certainly be done (you've seen the video as proof), but you're likely going to need to build the color changing circuit yourself. Or else find something else that already does the color shifting, and scavenge the control circuits out of it.

In theory you could buy one of those cheap toys/items that fitted with the color changing feature.
I talk about those lighted balls or snowmans that you can find in the cheap chinese stuff shops, at least here in Italy they sold them.

You could scavenge the board and with some reverse engineering I'm sure you could build a simple driver for the high power LEDs.
I would probably try and use some TIP41C/TIP42C (or even MOSFETs) depending on the way the board is working.